my life with knitting and other random adventures

Category Archives: birthday

Yesterday (although being awesome because is was my bday) was kind of an anti-climax, today however was great. Up nice and early to go get my nail done, but not before spending some time chilling in Starbucks (red cups start tomorrow btw) with soy caramel machhiato and porridge. I managed to get my itouch working with Starbucks wifi and downloaded twitterific and wordpress apps.

There are loads of charity shops near where I get my nails done and i always pop in and see of there are any books going cheap – this week was a good week. I have heard people rave about Diana Wynne Jones but never managed to find any of her books but today found two (Black Maria and Dogsbody) for £1 each and Mist of Avalon by Marion Bradley for £1.50. My pile of ‘to-read’ books is getting very big.

Apart from feeling really tired today is going well. My best mate has just left, we had our usually smoked salmon lunch. It has become tradition that we treat each other to smoked salmon on our birthdays. Just waiting for Karl to come home from work and then I’ll open my presents. Expect photos either later tonight or tomorrow. Have fillet steak and portobello mushrooms for dinner, along with chocolate and vanilla cheesecake. I will be eating this whilst watching the hour long special of Eastenders and then Britz (which I really enjoyed last night)

Karl just got home and has bought me a little Tigger birthday cake! Bless him he sang Happy Birthday all on his own. HE has just come in again with another ‘normal’ sized cake and sang Happy Birthday again. Double Bless!!

I have a new passion, sewing! The thing is the excitement is a bit premature as I haven’t actually done any sewing yet. I have the machine (in a box wrapped up in pretty pink paper, with strict instructions not be opened until Thursday) but I’m excited just looking at fabrics and deciding to what to make first. You see I HAVE to have some fabric to play with for the week end or else I’m just gonna sit a look at the thing – it needs to be used.

I’m a complete novice and really want to make bags – I love bags! I found a great shop and blog U-Handbag and contacted Lisa (the owner) for advice on a good beginner pattern. She is so nice and got back to me real quick suggesting this one – I promptly ordered it along with some interfacing. I will make the handbag first, then have a go at the drawstring bag. I think this will make a nice project bag for those projects slightly bigger than socks, but not too big to take out of the house. Hopefully it will be hear for Thursday.

Although Cambridge isn’t all that for yarn, the yarn shop, Sew Creative has ALOT of fabric. Whilst perusing several online stores I have fallen in love with the Kaffe Fasset range of fabrics and according the Sew Creative website they stock this range. Yay! It is going to take all my inner strength to sit through 3 hours of parasitology tomorrow morning before going to look (drool) at the fabric. I’m not buying anything yet as the material for my first project is part of my birthday present but I will price up what I like. I can then either try to find in London (if we have time), get Mum to order on-line for me or get the cash from Mum and go back to Sew Creative.

Do not think that I have forsaken knitting, I’ve been knitting quite a lot. I cast on Central Park hoodie (with Rowanspun Aran in a lovely tweedy brown) and have completed the back and about 3/4 of the left front. It is such a quick knit, I can see more of these in my future. I have completed the first Earl Grey sock for Keith’s birthday (another great pattern) and have just turned the heel on the Monkey sock for my Monkey Sock Swap Pal. These need to be finished by Thursday, but I think I may need the weekend to get them finished. Oops!

I have my MRI scan on wednesday, which is not something I look forward to. They’re not horrible in a painful, invasive proceedure way, or even unpleasant in a bearable but annoying pain way they just suck! I don’t even mind the claustrophobic atmosphere of the scanner, I just get BORED!!! Past scans have taken about 60-90 minutes and I find it difficult to lay still and not do anything for that length of time – unless I’m asleep. I have been known to fall asleep in the scanner but just as I doze off they wake me up by talking to me (through headphones) and asking me to hold my breath so they can take a picture. MRI’s are also very noisy, imagine lying in tube, and having someone sit on top and bang on it with a large hammer. The only good thing is I get to listen to music or the radio. I usually opt for listening to Radio 1 as that way it feels like I have a bit of company.

My new chair arrived today, so comfy, in fact more comfy than our bed at present, just waiting for the wireless router to arrive and I can sit up the table with my macbook on a comfy chair and write blog posts, at the moment i’m sitting on the floor in the middle of the lounge as the Ethernet lead doesn’t reach over the table. We had a move around to accommodate the new chair and the sewing machine. It also gives me more space to study.

I’m off to get some sleep or else I’m going to be to tired to celebrate of Thursday.

You are a natural born leader, even if those leadership talents haven’t been developed yet.
You have the power and self confidence to succeed in life, and your power grows daily.
Besides power, you also have a great deal of creativity that enables you to innovate instead of fail.
You are a visionary, seeing the big picture instead of all of the trivial little details.Your strength: Your supreme genius

I have decided to to be totally organised this year with xmas presents. Myself and Karl have pretty big familes so it can get very expensive (and with only one income, we often opt out of present giving) but last night I had a (minor) brainwave. Use my stash to knit the females presents and then buy the males presents. The problem I have with Xmas is that I never think about it until the middle of November. There is a really good reason for this – my birthday is at the beginning of November, so as a child Xmas was never thought of until the ‘fuss’ of my birthday died down. As you can imagine this can cause issues if I’m going to can knit presents. So I made a concious decision last night to organise the presents to be knit. On reflection I could just be trying to avoid the fact that my birthday is soon and trying to pretend that it has been and gone with out trauma. There will be trauma this year – i’m 30.After contemplating my patterns and stash I decided on socks for everyone (portable, quick and reasonably priced). I am hoping to make small tubular bags with a picot cast off in the left over yarn to put the socks in to give them a professional look. The bag can them be filled with lavender etc and placed in an underwear draw. I also want to design some tags to attach to the bag with washing instruction etc. I even plan to use a fair amount of my stash up. Before Xmas I have to knit:

and I have yarn in my stash to make 4 of these with yarn that is prefect for the recipients.

I cast on the Butterfly Bow Anklets last night using Cherry Tree Hill Supersock in Spring Frost and have knit one 24row pattern repeat and am really pleased with them. I will post photos in a couple of days when there is more to see.

My Mum is taking me to The Knitting and Stiching Show at Ally Pally for my birthday. I am really excited about it already esp as we are going to book in to a colourwork workshop. So hopefully I can learn the basics of colourwork. It should be a good day.

I am still plodding on with the Plaid sweater. I still that last sleeve to finish – its really dragging on, esp as the weather has taken an up turn so knitting in a chunky wool blend is not ideal. i WILL get it finsihed by the end of the week.